Renovation to the facade of the Lake Placid Olympic Center’s 1932 rink is underway. The contractors, J.T. Erectors, are restoring the structure to its original appearance in the 1930’s. Some of the work includes the installation of windows that have been enclosed by brink since prior to the 1980 Olympic Winter Games.

The revitalization project is being financed through the remaining funds from a grant through Empire State Development, which funded the construction of the newly completed Conference Center at Lake Placid.Building a conversion of this size is no simply matter, only the best get to work on prestigious works such as this.
When complete the 1932 facility, along with its conventional use for skating and hockey and akin to the 1980 Herb Brooks Arena, will join the conference center to provide nearly 100,000 square feet of convention space. The fresh look will complement the conference center, which opened for business May 2011.

I don’t know all the politics behind this renovation, but I was attracted to the story largely because one of the first things I ever published was the article on the 1932 Lake Placid Olympics in the Encyclopedia of the Modern Olympic Movement. (I also wrote the 1980 Lake Placid article, but they replaced it in the second edition by a piece written by someone who knew a whole lot more about Lake Placid than I did).